I tried to edit my original comment, but the editing was turned off. My comment was not intentionally snarky but based on my experiences in 2008. At that time, there were many subprime mortgages floating around that should've never been written. Those taking the risk (financial institutions) should've taken the fall, but instead, they pushed the losses onto the homeowners.
Your last paragraph needs more nuance because the real world is messy. There are many factors ranging from inadequate income for savings and personal scale disasters like divorce and medical bankruptcy that prove your claims are inaccurate. However, I think your last paragraph is a passionate disapproval of people living in ways different from you. Some of your points are valid on income inequality, power structures, and transit, but the reality is what we live with today. If you look at the practical realities, widespread transit changes and housing densification are not likely to happen any time soon.
If you want to make change now, join your city government. Promote a plan to destroy old properties and replace them with denser, more environmentally sound buildings. Fix the core of the city before you try to change the way anybody else lives.
An easier path is engineering and product development of solutions that make what we have now less destructive.
If that's too big, here is a simple change that significantly impacts people and natural life: Turn off the lights. If you can't do that, make them fainter and warmer (2800K) and point them at the ground. Light pollution substantially negatively impacts the environment and the health of people and animals.
Another small change is nudging people to rewild their lawns. This would have a huge impact on insects, birds, and small mammals. It's a simple change: change a little bit of the zoning laws to reward native plant use and punish the use of invasive and other non-native plants.
It's important to recognize that if you can't make a small change happen and stick, the big stuff is a non-starter. This is true for personal change as well as societal change. A small change is a big change.
You've given individual solutions to try to fix a systemic problem, which of course does not work. They are good ideas; they are also not enough, and don't even begin to address the issue at-scale.
What does is recognizing that the "be realistic" bluster is just that: a bluff, from people who hold real power in the status-quo, but who realize that that status-quo can be changed, if only the walls would fall and nature could take its course. The reality is that older generations have created a zero-sum situation, and the only way for the younger ones to thrive is for the older ones to give up some (many) of their advantages. The reality is that this happens when political and economic forces are finally incentivized to stop protecting them.
One last thing I feel the need to mention whenever it comes up:
>At that time, there were many subprime mortgages floating around that should've never been written.
This is true, but not because they were written for people who were financially unfit to be homeowners. It's because these loans were written intentionally to fail, knowing that banks could steal the homes back in illegal foreclosure proceedings, knowing that the mortgages would be wrapped up in financial vehicles and sold off at profit, knowing that the government would backstop them when it all came crashing down. Given fair loans, most of these mortgage-seekers would have been able to keep up their payments - but that woukd have been less profitable for banks than what ended up happening. Instead, these financial institutions were able to siphon billions from the middle class, and buy up the remains of their failed rivals for pennies on the dollar. Which is despicable, of course. But to understand this, you have to reject the notion that we're living in a just world whose past mistakes can't be corrected. It isn't and they can be.
On reading your comment, I am reminded of Planck's opinion that science advances one funeral at a time. I think that is true here too. The change you want will come one funeral at a time.
I think one fallacy in your logic is that the older generation reaped benefits uniformly. The reality is something like 40% of my generation is retiring into poverty. Another 20 or 30% will end up in poverty when they run out of assets. Does that sound like people who have advantages they can give up? How do you convince someone to give up hard-earned privilege that is not financial but makes life worth living for them?
The very real conflict you describe is, in my opinion, misattributed. It is a class problem, not a generational one. The number of people who have caused the pain and suffering you, heck, we experience would fill a very small city in our very large country. These are the people we need to take power from in order to make the change we want to see occur and stick.
When I gave examples of problems in a small, I was not telling you to be realistic. If I did, I missedited and I apologize. I gave you the examples to use as a tool for measuring your capacity to implement change. The problems you want to solve are huge and are what I consider century-level problems. However, if you put what you want to do in the context of a very small population of powerful people, change becomes a multi-century problem if nothing about the current power structure changes.
But all is not lost. Remember, it's "if nothing about the current power structure changes". The question then becomes how to change the power structure, and I think the fastest way is to increase rent-seeking opportunities in your desired future.
My logic is that people in power are motivated by money as a proxy for power. After all, who needs more than three or four times basic expenses to have a good life? In today's economic realities, rent-seeking is the dominant method of wealth accumulation. You want to change the attitudes of the rich and powerful, change where rent-seeking is rewarding.
This has been a good conversation, and I thank you for it.
Your last paragraph needs more nuance because the real world is messy. There are many factors ranging from inadequate income for savings and personal scale disasters like divorce and medical bankruptcy that prove your claims are inaccurate. However, I think your last paragraph is a passionate disapproval of people living in ways different from you. Some of your points are valid on income inequality, power structures, and transit, but the reality is what we live with today. If you look at the practical realities, widespread transit changes and housing densification are not likely to happen any time soon.
If you want to make change now, join your city government. Promote a plan to destroy old properties and replace them with denser, more environmentally sound buildings. Fix the core of the city before you try to change the way anybody else lives.
An easier path is engineering and product development of solutions that make what we have now less destructive.
If that's too big, here is a simple change that significantly impacts people and natural life: Turn off the lights. If you can't do that, make them fainter and warmer (2800K) and point them at the ground. Light pollution substantially negatively impacts the environment and the health of people and animals.
Another small change is nudging people to rewild their lawns. This would have a huge impact on insects, birds, and small mammals. It's a simple change: change a little bit of the zoning laws to reward native plant use and punish the use of invasive and other non-native plants.
It's important to recognize that if you can't make a small change happen and stick, the big stuff is a non-starter. This is true for personal change as well as societal change. A small change is a big change.
--- Your friendly country mouse